Worse than Predicted

When I first read the 2007 IPCC reports, as scary as they were, I was confused by how they seemed to downplay a lot of the threats. I knew that because of pressure from certain countries (U.S., China, Saudi Arabia were named in one article) they reduced the certainty level of some of their predictions. But I had been reading about studies that made things seem quite a bit worse than what was in the IPCC summaries. For example, the IPCC report said oceans would not rise much at all by 2100, but I was reading things that made it seem at least possible that they would rise much more by then. I read later that it takes a few years for new information to make it into those reports, so the reason was partly that they were a few years out of date. They also did not take feedback (or things like the lubricating effects of water at the bottom of the ice) into account in their models for melting ice. Not good when the IPCC reports are what governments are supposed to base their policies on. But they didn’t know how to quantify those things, so it’s understandable they didn’t want to include them in their models. The problem is that it made it easier for politicians to think they could delay action.

Periodically, since I started reading global warming and climate change news articles, an article would appear saying that some aspect of the problem was progressing faster than scientists expected. In 2007 I read so many articles like this that I suspected that some sort of feedback was already happening. In early 2008 I read that James Hansen had said the albedo feedback was already happening. Other scientists reported that the oceans might not be absorbing as much CO2 as they used to, another feedback effect. Forest fires were increasing because of global warming, which is another feedback. Most disturbingly, there were reports from Russia and Alaska that melting permafrost was already releasing methane and CO2, and even that some of the methane frozen at the bottom of the shallow ocean near Russia was being released. This was the most dangerous type of feedback that I had heard about, so I was not happy to hear that it might already be happening, even on a relatively small scale.

The article below talks about some of these things. It’s nice to hear someone from the IPCC finally admitting they were so far off. But we can’t wait for the next IPCC report, which comes out in 2014. Keep the pressure on our governments to solve this problem before it is too late.

http://www.truthout.org/021609M#comment-40896

Addendum 2/28/2009: Here is another story about both poles melting faster than expected. "There's some people who fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.... If the West Antarctica sheet collapses, then we're looking at a sea level rise of between 1 meter and 1.5 meters (3 feet, 4 inches to nearly 5 feet)."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29386865/

It's not just that things are warming faster than predicted. The IPCC is now saying that the earth won't have to warm up as much as thought in order to cause "serious consequences". For example, "increases in drought, heat waves and floods are projected in many regions and would have adverse impacts, including increased water stress, wildfire frequency and flood risks."

Addendum 3/15/2009: Here is yet another article where IPCC scientists are saying that their latest (2007) report underestimated the global warming threat. That report predicted the oceans would rise 7 to 23 inches by 2100. The new “best estimate” is 3.25 feet or about 1.7 times the old highest estimate, and that is IF we manage to reduce GHG emissions dramatically. The new highest estimate is 190 centimeters, or about 6 feet 3 inches. Even the old estimates would have been “enough to wipe out several small island nations and wreak havoc for tens of millions living in low-lying deltas”. A sea level rise of 1-2 meters would be “an absolute catastrophe” for China. But it would also be devastating to almost every coastal area, and especially for low-lying places like New Orleans, Bangladesh, The Netherlands, and so on:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/10/climate-sea-level.html

Addendum 8/21/2009: Here is another article (from 7/24/09) that talks about how global warming is worse than scientists thought, specifically in regards to the poles:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164

Almost as scary as the science in the article are most of the comments that I saw posted for it. It is amazing how confused so many people are about the science. Actually, that is not amazing, what is amazing is how passionately they defend their ignorant beliefs. The fossil fuels industry, in collaboration with conservatives, have done an amazing job confusing people.

Extinction in the News

Here are some recent articles on (mass) extinction and global warming. Mass extinction is what we should be trying to avoid at all costs, of course. Even if you only care about humans, our population would at best shrink dramatically (i.e. the vast majority of us would die) in a mass extinction, and at worst we would cease to exist entirely too.

Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two Punch
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/17/mass-extinction-theory.html

Study Sees Mass Extinctions via Warming
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3897120/

Penguins Showing Strain Under Climate Change
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/13/magellanic-penguins.html

The Best News

I think this is the best news I've heard since I started following news on global warming. "United on climate change: Obama's Chinese revolution"

http://www.truthout.org/020909N

More on What Could Happen (and What Is Happening)

In my last post I focused on the perils part of the U.S. would face with a one degree Centigrad rise in global temperature. Steven Chu, the new U.S. Energy Secretary painted a similar picture a couple of days ago:

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either.

Here is the complete article:
http://www.truthout.org/020509EA#comment-38241

I am very glad that Obama appointed someone who is a real scientist and who can comprehend what is happening. I just hope it isn't too late.

I also mentioned that places like Australia would be experiencing droughts at the same time, and in fact they already are experiencing the worst drought in 117 years:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25617864/

Another article I read recently (which I couldn't find just now) said the Australian government acknowledged the drought was due to global warming and that it will only get worse. And China is also experiencing a drought right now that is so bad they declared an emergency. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d99e77fc-f38b-11dd-9c4b-0000779fd2ac.html

Just in: China raised the emergency from level 2 to level 1, their highest level of threat:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/06/content_10773460.htm

Korea is in a drought too right now:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2900712

And the Arctic continues to warm:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29038734/

This is just a hint of what will be happening in the coming years. Chu said California may not be producing crops by the end of this century, but I think it could happen earlier than that. I base this mostly on the fact that scientists continue to be surprised at how the effects of global warming are happening sooner and with more severity than they predict. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Addendum 2/28/09: Speaking of California and droughts, we are in our third year of a pretty bad drought, and even though we've gotten lots of rain and snow over the past couple of weeks, the federal government announced recently that it plans to cut off water from thousands of California farms for at least two weeks, starting tomorrow. The San Joaquin valley alone is expected to lose 1.15 billion dollars in wages, as 40,000 jobs are lost because of the drought. State residents will be asked to cut water use by 20%, and there will be mandatory rationing in some places. Here is the full article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29302902/

I mentioned in an earlier post that California grows most of this country's fruits and vegetables, but the above article has specific examples at the bottom, such as 93% of the broccoli, 98% of the carrots, 86% of the garlic, 94% of the tomatoes, 99% of the almonds and walnuts, 95% of the apricots, 90% of the strawberries, and 100% of the olives. This is just a partial list, and it means prices for all these things will go up.

And remember, this is only a 3 year drought. During each succeeding year of drought, water becomes more scarce. Unless we invent and implement a way to remove massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere right away (an impossible task, really), global warming will continue to get worse for many years, regardless of what else we do. This means we will have more severe and longer lasting droughts over the next few decades. Farmers will suffer great economic hardships and many will go out of business. They and people whose jobs depend on them will be unemployed, and if it goes on long enough, they will have to migrate. But where will they go?

If we would have started cutting our GHG emissions years ago, when we first knew about the problem, we could have avoided this. Now it is becoming a fight for our very existence. Yet most people in power still think in terms of how much reducing GHG will hurt business or how much of the GDP it will cost. That is supremely stupid, because global warming is already going to hurt business and reduce our GDP way more than reducing GHG output would have, and if we delay much longer, there will be no GDP at all. I wish people would put things like this into perspective.